Re: Roman amphorae from a Roman shipwreck?

On May 30, 5:14 pm, George <gbl...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 31, 8:13 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



On May 30, 3:31 pm, "Uwe Müller" <uwemuel...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitragnews:1180548646.749923.109770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On May 30, 10:59 am, "Uwe Müller" <uwemuel...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Tom McDonald" <kilt...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb im
Newsbeitragnews:I8f7i.3245$6q.1990@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Eric Stevens wrote:
On Tue, 29 May 2007 21:50:34 GMT, "johansson"
<1732johans...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@xxxxxxxxx> skrev i

diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:s73p535ao82kgblqv4ft2vepq55eso7...@xxxxxxxxxxx

snip

If you compare the total number of shipwrecks in the Med, no matter what
port of origin, with supposedly hundreds of Roman age wrecks off the
Brazilian coast, then the traffic from Rome to Brazil must have exceeded
the
roman shipping in the Med by a large factor.

As the wrecks from the Med are from a couple of thousand years, while
Roman
seafaring only lasted a couple of centuries, this would imply huge fleets
leaving Rome for Brazil on a daily basis.

I would not accept the 'hundreds of wrecks' on hear-say.

have fun

Uwe Mueller
Also because of the extremely high rate of expected wrecks (Romans
calculated that at least 30% of cargo would have been lost by storms
or pirate assaults), the traffic was proportionally (or perhaps more)
increased, and many goods were found (ordinarily contained in amphoras
or in the larger dolia) that let us understand what the commerce was
about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_archaeologyhttp://www2.rgzm.de/....

The number of Roman ships was in the thousands, 1,200 for grain alone.
Blow the estimate out to 4000 ships making at least voyage each
sailing year (about 8 months). From the start of the Empire to 400 AD
or so that would be about 1.6 million ship/voyages. Since the loss of
ships was estimated at 30% there are 480,000 lost ships in the Med for
just 400 years.

And of this 480,000 wrecks how many are known? One in thousand? One in ten
thousand? That would mean that the several hundred known Roman wrecks off
Brazil would be the remains of several hundred thousand or several million
ships that tried the trip, those that failed off the coast of Brazil.

Comparing the number of ships, which we don't really know, with the number
of wrecks in total, which we also don't know is a nice exercise, but it does
have little value. Comparing the number of wrecks known in both areas, can
provide at least a rough estimate about frequency of travel. It is a very
rough estimate, especially as chances of discovery are much higher in the
Med.

If there are 200 shipwrecks of Roman ships in Brazilian waters that
would suggest something like 450 voyages, about one a year for the
same 400 years.

That escapes me.
If 30 % of the ships are lost each trip, 200 (the minimun number for several
hundred) wrecks attest for 600 ships. But that would mean, every disaster,
every pirate attack had to happen off the coast of Brazil and every one of
those ships would have been discovered. How likely is that scenario?

So you'd have to add a number of wrecks undiscovered until now, let's say
100 for everyone we know of, and than at least double the number of wrecks,
the trip back being the harder part of the voyage. A rough, conservative,
minimum-numbers estimate points at several hundred thousand ships that tried
the voyage, 40,000 that were lost, something like 100 regularly every year,
if the basic number of 200 discovered wrecks was correct.

That doesn't sound like a lot of trips if they were blown off a voyage
to the Canaries or the Cape Verde islands.

It all depends on how you do the math.

have fun

Uwe Mueller

It always depends on how you do the math. If only two ships a year
make the trip, intentionally or involuntarily, that's 800 ships. If
you lose 30% of those ships, that is two every three years, a logical
number that doesn't take into account the ability of virtually every
ship through the 19th century to repair or recreate itself on the
spot, you have about 240 in the agua near Brazil.

At these rates of voyages I'd expect there to be shore based evidence
of survivors .
And some evidence of Brazilian contact in Roman histories

The cargo may have been Roman, I would venture when those ships are
salvaged, if ever, they will be Carthaginian deep water vessels. All
that marijuana that has been recovered from Med wrecks had to come
from somewhere. The reason for better survival of ships on the
Atlantic over those on the Mediterranean is that the former were built
for that purpose while the Med ships were less substantial and
susceptible to worm and other damage.

Natural History 96(12) {Dec. 1987} "How Carthage Lost the Sea,"
concerning the wreck of a 3rd century B.C. Carthaginian shipwreck
discovered off the town of Marsala in western Sicily. Author Honor
Frost notes (pp. 61-63):

The most surprising discovery, however, was the stems of a grass whose
yellow color stood out among the dunnage (the layer of branches that
protected the bottom of the hull from ballast stones). There was so
much of this plant material that we could do no more than bag random
samples for analysis at the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew...after excavating two basketfuls of them, we made a special
request for their identification. The answer was, probably Cannabis
sativa. The doubt was due to the decay of the minute hairs that would
have differentiated these stems from two other plants: hops and
stinging nettles. Given the choice, I accept cannabis: baskets of
stinging nettles seem improbable and there is no record of Punic hop
cultivation, whereas Herodotus, writing in the fifth century B.C.,
already refers to cannabis smoking.


an explanation for the lack of written accounts might be the usual one
of keeping a source of something like marijuana and cocaine secret and
the method of trade as described by Herodotus.

The Carthaginians tell us that they trade with a race of men who live
in a part of Libya beyond the Pillars of Herakles. On reaching this
country, they unload their goods, arrange them tidily along the beach,
and then, returning to their boats, raise a smoke. Seeing the smoke,
the natives come down to the beach, place on the ground a certain
quantity of gold in exchange for the goods, and go off again to a
distance. The Carthaginians then come ashore and take a look at the
gold; and if they think it presents a fair price for their wares, they
collect it and go away; if, on the other hand, it seems too little,
they go back aboard and wait, and the natives come and add to the gold
until they are satisfied. There is perfect honesty on both sides; the
Carthaginians never touch the gold until it equals in value what they
have offered for sale, and the natives never touch the goods until the
gold has been taken away.
[Herodotus, Histories 4.196;

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Roman amphorae from a Roman shipwreck?
    ... Brazilian coast, then the traffic from Rome to Brazil must have exceeded ... Also because of the extremely high rate of expected wrecks (Romans ... Blow the estimate out to 4000 ships making at least voyage each ... That would mean that the several hundred known Roman wrecks off ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Roman amphorae from a Roman shipwreck?
    ... with supposedly hundreds of Roman age wrecks ... imply huge fleets leaving Rome for Brazil on a daily basis. ... Blow the estimate out to 4000 ships making at least voyage ... coast of Brazil. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Roman amphorae from a Roman shipwreck?
    ... with supposedly hundreds of Roman age wrecks ... imply huge fleets leaving Rome for Brazil on a daily basis. ... Blow the estimate out to 4000 ships making at least voyage ... coast of Brazil. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Roman amphorae from a Roman shipwreck?
    ... huge fleets leaving Rome for Brazil on a daily basis. ... Also because of the extremely high rate of expected wrecks (Romans ... Since the loss of ships was estimated at 30% there are 480,000 ... That would mean that the several hundred known Roman ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Roman amphorae from a Roman shipwreck?
    ... would imply huge fleets leaving Rome for Brazil on a daily basis. ... Blow the estimate out to 4000 ships making at least voyage ... Roman wrecks off Brazil would be the remains of several hundred ... failed off the coast of Brazil. ...
    (sci.archaeology)